


Earthbound

by CatherineParker



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s01e04 Murphy's Law, Eventual Romance, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Journey to Arkadia, Murphy's Law, Season 1, Slow Burn, Tags Are Hard, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, doctor mechanic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:24:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8370379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatherineParker/pseuds/CatherineParker
Summary: This story explores one of the many possibilities, if it had gone differently in season 1, episode 4 and Raven and Abby went to Earth in the russian pod together. Discovering a foreign world where nothing is truly as it seems. Raven and Abby must keep each other safe in the face of mortal danger and their desperate journey to reunite with their loved ones.





	1. Of the Ark & Space

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made of this.

“Abby..." Raven gets it, she really does. But how is she supposed to concentrate on integrating a vital part of machinery into the mainframe with the doctor trying to run a hole into the floor. “How about I pace in the operating room next time you’re working?”  
  
Abby's telecommunication device beeps before she can answer, although Raven doesn't believe she'd have gotten one anyway. As soon as Abby pushes the blinking button on her com panel, Jackson's voice sounds over the speaker into the launch bay. “Abby, did you take morphine from the clinic?”  
  
Raven turns to her wide eyed and eyebrows raised. There's no way Abby would do something so dangerous as that. But then the look on Abby's face is one of guilt and shock of being caught.  
  
“They inventoried already?” There is sheer panic in the doctors voice and Raven stops working altogether. It's no use anyway; she is just prolonging the inevitable and now it seems like time has run out on them.  
  
“No. Kane was just here." Jackson continues and he sounds equally flabbergasted as Raven feels to what lengths Abby had gone to see this through. "He’s on his way to Mecha to arrest both of you right now."  
  
Raven can tell that Abby is not listening to him anymore. She closes the com link with Jackson seemingly without even thinking about it. Most curious to Raven though also without a goodbye or any kind of sentiment for a close friend one would expect in a situation like this. Abby surprises her once more with her professional demeanor—bordering on coldness—in difficult circumstances such as this.   
  
"You gave Nygel morphine?” Raven asks without judgement. It's not like she herself wasn't prepared to give Nygel almost anything she would have wanted. Raven would have made it happen somehow. But then not quite anything. Abby still paces in front of her, still wrapped up in her thoughts and unable to believe their journey is about to come to an unfortunate early end.  
  
“She turned me in." Abby murmurs more to herself than to Raven, but then she pulls herself together and refocuses her attention back to Raven. "How much longer?”  
  
“To get the pressure regulator working? Not gonna happen.”  
  
"What!?"  
  
"It's broken, Abby." Raven runs a hand through her hair and looks away from Abby to the wall opposite where the spacesuits are stored. "You gave Nygel that morphine for a useless piece of crap."  
  
"What are we going to do now?" There is a high pitch to Abby's voice that Raven hasn't heard before. It makes the hairs on her neck stand on end.

"They’re gonna be here in five!"  
  
"There's only one thing we can do." Raven scrambles from the pod as an idea hits her. "Here." She thrusts one of the spacesuits in Abby's hands and feels almost giddy at the last minute safe. "Put this on and get in. I get our packs."  
  
"Is this going to work?" Abby asks, but is already stepping into it, although like someone who has never worn a spacesuit in their life. Raven wonders absentmindedly what Abby would have done, if Raven had not demanded to come with her to the ground. How she would have managed to get all of this done on her own, with only little to no navigation—or general spaceship—knowledge to speak of.  
  
"Since the pressure in the drop ship won't be regulated by anything else.. I hope they do."  
  
Abby looks at her panic stricken and pauses in her motion to pull the spacesuit over her shoulders.  
  
"We'll be fine, Abby." Raven reassures her as she zips her own suit up and prays to god she is right about that.  
  
A few minutes pass until they have changed and packed the few items they are going to take with them. It is not much since the pod does not offer any storage room over a backpack each.  
  
Raven startles at the sudden loud banging on the hanger doors. Then they can make out Kane's dulled voice from outside. "Open the door, Abby. It's over!"  
  
Abby ignores him completely and climbs into the pod with Raven close behind.

"Are you sure you want to do this? Raven asks once Abby has scooted over and Raven closes the door behind them. Even if she knows as well as the doctor that there is nothing left for them to go back to. Not after the crimes they both have committed to get to this point.  
  
"Absolutely." Abby states it with so much strength and certainty that it calms Raven’s fluttering nerves. She pushes several buttons, flips levers and a myriad of lights on the control panel flicker to life.  
  
"Beginning launch sequence." Raven murmurs, going over the procedure in her head one last time. There is no room for mistakes, not today. Not when their lives are at stake and the survival of three hundred innocent people, who will get floated when Raven doesn't get this show on the road, depend on it.  
  
"Strap yourself in." She says absentmindedly to Abby as she wraps her necklace around the broken pressure regulator for good luck. With a few more buttons pushed Raven sighs in relief when the engine finally hums to life.  
  
The banging from outside comes in louder and louder and there are certainly a bunch of guards working their asses off to get the doors to open. Raven grins at the curses that float into the room and is kind of proud of herself that not one of them have been able to crack the passcode for the door lock yet.  
  
"We need to hurry." Abby says, now sounding anxious with her prolonged inaction. Raven hears her already over the com system inside of her helmet—and smiles at the familiar mechanic tilt it adds to her voice.  
  
"There is nothing they can do to stop us now." Raven reaches over to still the nervous tick of Abby's hand then shuts the visor on her helmet.  
  
"Here it goes. Are you ready?" She smirks at Abby.  
  
"No," Abby says seriously, but her stern expression morphs into a grin as she speaks. "But let's do it anyway."  
  
Raven nods and activates the decompression process. After it beeps in completion she enters the code for the airlock to open.

With the help of the thrusters they float steadily out of the hanger of Mecha station and into open space.  
  
"It's beautiful." Abby gasps, kind of awestruck, when Raven navigates them into a position that has the Ark looming behind them and Earth in all it's glory comes into view a few seconds later on the front window screen.  
  
"It is, isn't it?" Raven agrees and looks over to the other woman and smiles at the childlike wonderment on Abby's features.

With a last lingering look at Earth, Raven begins the final system check before re-entry.  
  
"OK. RCS valve open."

The bulb for the RCS valve glows green on the display and Raven is satisfied. The redundant control system is the only pilot valve system that has no single point of failure, which is good in theory, but she needs to be sure it lives up to her expectations also in practice. And bringing a 160 year old Russian pod from space back onto Earths surface without bursting asunder in the atmosphere is most likely as much practice it can get. The last thing Raven needs right now is in unwanted closure of the process valve, but she forces those dark thoughts of ‘what if?’ out of her mind, at least until she actually needs to address them.  
  
"RCS thrust pressure good."

She checks the reaction control system twice, not wanting to risk losing either the system that distributes propellant to their engines nor the thermal control systems, without which Abby and her will freeze to death before they even begin the re-entry process.

Next point altitude. "Ahh. Attitude good."

Abby watches her silently, but curious and attentive. Following her every move, every flick of Raven's fingers as she completes the system check.

"Heat shield good. Ok."

Raven nods to herself, going over the checklist in her mind one more time.  
  
"Do you want to do the honors?" She turns her head to look at Abby.  
  
"And do what?" Abby asks.  
  
"Bring us home." Raven grins and points to a big red lever. "Push this down."  
  
"Kiss your ass goodbye?" Abby reads out loud from the note that is taped to the lever. "Not very reassuring." But Abby chuckles, and the sound of it comes over the intercom somewhat distorted.  
  
"Wanna do it together?" Raven asks and meets Abby's eyes for the first time since they have launched.  
  
Abby nods and Raven puts her hand carefully on the lever over Abby's.  
  
"Don't blow up," Raven whispers as they push it down together.  
  
The engines fire with a boom and then the pod begins to tumble in a hail of fire towards earth. The sudden speed pushes them both back into their seats and Raven tries to stay focused even with the unimaginable forces and stress that the flight trajectory puts on their bodies.  
  
Abby groans in the seat next to her and Raven reaches out to squeeze the other woman’s knee once in reassurance. She hopes it is enough to convey that everything is fine--will be fine--as long as they stay on course. It is most likely Abby’s first flight experience in a small shuttle such as theirs. And properly the last one too.  
  
The display in front of her suddenly starts beeping wildly and alarms sound shrill and loud in the small pod. Raven tries frantically to stabilize them as the spacecraft flings out of control and then just spins and spins.  
  
"Something is wrong." Raven gasps over the noise of blaring alarms as they get flung forwards and backwards in their seats. Her head hits the back of the chair with such force that it leaves her dazed and her mind hazy.  
  
Without averting her gaze from the control panel before her, Raven reaches over to clasp Abby's gloved hand tightly. The last thing she consciously notices—before her vision blurs and the world around her fades into darkness—are Abby's fingers squeezing her own.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Any Feedback is -as always- very much appreciated!)


	2. Of Pods & Spacesuits

“Raven, wake up.”

The low voice pierces through the fog of unconsciousness slowly but steady. Her tongue feels thick and heavy in her mouth and Raven has no idea where she is. Eyelids won’t open, her body refuses to heed any of her commands. She starts to drift off again but then her brain processes another sound.

“Raven honey, I need you to wake up now.”

It is the same voice again. Familiar and caring, but Raven cannot make the connection from where she knows it—or where she might have heard it before. It sounds from very close by and she tries to focus on it; tries to pull herself free and out of this state between waking and slipping back to sleep. The sensation is strange, like being wrapped in a thick wad of cotton.

Before Raven loses consciousness something touches her face, cool and careful. Fingers and a cloth maybe? She becomes more aware with each dab and contact, more aware of her body and mind, as well as her surroundings—and oh god—excruciating pain.

Raven tries to move away from the prodding fingers but has to realize she is unable to. The slight movement of her body serves as reminder that moving might not be such a good idea as pain in her head blossoms with new intensity. Her eyes flutter open, barely at all, but the world around her spins and twirls. Her stomach lurches dangerously and the sudden nausea hits her like a brick.

“Ow goahwd.” She mumbles and her brain is still not cooperating as she focuses hard on not throwing up.

But then there is a hand on her forehead and another presses against her neck, cool and soft, and it feels like heaven. After a minute or two, the nausea slowly recedes enough, that she chances to open her eyes once more.

“There you go.” The voice whispers again and Raven turns her head to it, slow and very, very careful. Only then she sees Dr. Abigail Griffin sitting beside her, slightly turned in her seat towards Raven, pressing her palms against Ravens skin. Her eyes flicker around in the inside of the pod and linger at the window screen and then everything comes rushing back to her in a tidal wave of memories.

"Doctor Griffin?!" Raven asks, reaching up to touch her forehead where it feels like it has been bleeding, sticky and hurting. "What are you doing here?"

"What?" The doctor looks genuinely confused, then more and more horrified.

"You don't remember?" Her voice sounds a little shrill even though the doctor obviously tries to get it back to a more measured tone. "Nothing? Nothing at all?"

"Did we hook up or something and it got a little rough?"

Abby’s eyes widen so comically that Raven can't keep it up any longer and breaths out a small chuckle, "just kidding Abby. No need to get your panties in a twist."

"You.. you are impossible." Abby rolls her eyes and huffs, but her relief is clearly visible. "I would slap you, if I could be sure it won't make your situation worse."

"Lucky me then I got a doctor for company who shall do no harm." Raven smirks at how Abby's lips curl up at the corners, just a little, as if she is trying hard not to smile.

“We made it though.” Raven whispers, in awe and slightly wary of what a louder volume will do to her head. She can’t stop the smile as she focuses on the window screen for the first time since they have crash-landed on Earth.

Earth.

They made it; they are finally home.

Abby mirrors her smile but it is dampened by apprehension. “We need to get you out of here. You need to lay down.”

“Okay,“ Raven murmurs. The idea of laying down and stretch out her legs actually sounds pretty amazing right now, especially with the constant throbbing in her head.

“How long was I out?” She asks, not moving yet but Abby removes her fingers slowly off her skin. Raven misses the cool, soothing touch immediately, but refuses to admit it out loud.

“I’m not entirely sure.” Abby sounds as tired as she looks. “A few hours?”

“Why didn’t you get out?” Raven asks as she slides out of her gloves then starts to fiddle with the belt, that keeps her strapped into her chair. The closure snaps open with a click almost immediately and she can breathe more easily straightaway.

“I couldn’t.” Abby sighs. “The snap of my seatbelt is jammed.”

Raven looks over, taking in the reddened skin of Abby’s fingers, where she must have tried to open it for a long while.

“Let me try.” Raven says and leans forward, closer to where the closure is connecting the two separate seat-belts across Abby’s chest. The forward motion and leaning down is not the best idea at the moment, Raven realizes, as her head begins to throb with renewed vigor. A few minutes pass and Raven bites her lip to keep the rising nausea at bay and exhales a shaky breath when the snap finally clicks open under her ministrations.

“Thank you.” Abby breathes out and slips free off the belts that held her captive for hours. “Now let’s get out of here.”

Raven tries to make out anything else but leaves and twigs that are covering the entire front window, but can’t see anything but lush green outside. “You think it’s safe?”

“Only one way to find out.” Abby sounds suddenly a little less tired and more excited. Raven feels the same—or will feel the same—when she is not practically dying anymore.

At least they have not landed in the ocean or a lake and Raven is grateful for that. There's no way she wouldn't get sick right away with a swaying pod. With a quick glance towards Abby she presses the button for the doors to open, but the telltale noise of hissing air and depressurization fails to sound. Raven presses the button once more but is only met with equal deafening silence.

"What now?" Abby asks, pressing her lips together in a tight line, brown eyes focus on Raven.

"Now we need to open it manually." Raven turns in her seat to face the door and reaches out for the unlock mechanism. She tries to ignore the black spots that appear in her vision as soon as she stretches her arms up to grasp the handle. As she starts to push it to the right she sees stars and her vision darkens at the edges. The pounding in her head is back as vigorously as if it never receded. She buries her face into her hands and takes deep, measured breaths.

"That doesn't look good," Abby says. "Let me try."

"I'm fine Abby." Raven murmurs from beneath her fingers. "Just give me a minute."

"You're not fine." Abby says with a certain doctoral edge in her tone, that Raven doesn't miss. "You have most likely a concussion. Any strenuous activity should absolutely be avoided in your state. Just tell me what I need to do."

"Okay, okay Doc." Raven relents in a hushed tone because the world around her is still tilting dangerously. Next to her Abby has scrambled out of the spacesuit and suddenly looks completely out of place in their little space ship in casual clothing.

"Do you see the dark gray lever in the corner?" Raven leans her head backwards against the headrest.

"Yes, I see it." Abby says and moves to kneel, slightly crouched, onto her seat.

"Turn it to the left." Raven instructs and watches as Abby does as she is told.

"Okay now push the white bar up. That should depressurize the door."  
The much anticipated hissing sound of air escaping fills the pod and Raven smiles brightly. "Very good."

Abby looks back over her shoulder, chuckling. "Now, it's not rocket science, is it?"

"No." Raven agrees good-heartedly. "You should be able to push the door open now."

Raven watches as Abby's muscles strain under the pressure she applies against the hatch. The door doesn't budge. After a few minutes of trying the doctor gives up, sliding back into her seat, breathing heavily.

"That went well." Raven teases and gets a huff from Abby for her efforts. "Something from outside must be blocking it.. Try mine then."

Abby nods and slides to the edge of her seat. Raven follows her gaze curiously as Abby is no doubt analyzing how to get to the door with Raven still sitting in her own seat; knees almost touching the control board--and the middle console taking up the rest of the space in between.

Raven presses her knees and feet closely together, making room for Abby to step on each side of her legs.

"Okay.." Abby murmurs rather to herself and scrambles over the middle console, with her left foot first, holding onto Raven's shoulder for balance as she tries to pull her right leg over it as well. When her shoe gets stuck on something on the middle console, Raven hears her mumble something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like "damn it". Then the doctors shoe jams free so suddenly, that Abby ends up sliding onto Raven's lap, knees touching to her hipbone and the back of the seat.

Raven grins at Abby's startled expression. „Well, if that wasn't smooth, Doc." Her grin grows wider on her lips. "But didn't you tell me no strenuous activities?"

For a moment Abby sits entirely frozen to the spot and just stares at her. Her gaze intense and scrutinizing, but then the expression is gone as quickly as it appeared, and she chuckles.

"And there I thought I could get away with it." Abby says conspiratorially, mirth lighting up her brown eyes.

"Oh you most certainly could, if I wasn't incapacitated at the moment." Raven winks at her for good measure.

Abby's eyes narrow at her again, like she is ascertaining Raven’s intentions. Silently questioning the seriousness of the banter, before she turns her attention to the door and away a little too quickly, when she comes up empty handed. Raven can see Abby fighting a smile, shaking her head ever so slightly and—yep she is blushing.

Raven decides to put her out of her misery—at least for now, although she can't really tell why it brings her so much pleasure to see Abby loose her cool like this. "Can you reach the lever from here?"

"I think so." Abby says, avoiding Raven's gaze as she presses her legs more tightly against Raven's so she can lean back without crashing into the console behind her.

Abby goes through the procedure rather quickly and when she tries to move the door this time, it moves easily to the side.

Fresh air fills the pod at once and warm rays of sunshine flitter inside, blinding and startling them both as soon as the door has swung out of the way.

Raven watches on as Abby stumbles carefully outside.

And while the doctor just stands there in the sunshine, arms stretched out into the air, awestruck and happy, Raven’s heart swells with joy just looking at her.

They made it. They made it to Earth.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Any Feedback is -as always- very much appreciated!)


	3. Of a Wrong Coast

„How much longer do I need to stay like this?“

Raven gets it. She really does. And it was certainly fine for the first hour or even two, but she feels more than a little restless now. Although, Raven has to admit, with her gaze pointed at the blue sky above, dotted with puffy clouds here and there, she does not believe she will ever grow tire of its breathtaking beauty.

After a quick examination the doctor had determined that there is no major head injury whatsoever but Raven still had to lay down for a while, to give her body time to recuperate. The scratch on her forehead luckily did not need any stitches and Raven has discovered that Abby came prepared for injuries as she has brought some medical supplies. Also borrowed. Raven doesn’t feel half as bad about the few tools she herself had snagged before their departure.  
  
“At least two more hours.” Abby gives her a look of slight irritation. It is kind of cute how her face scrunches up and Raven thinks she might ask again, just to see Abby do it once more. “It hasn’t changed much since you asked me last--like five minutes ago.”  
  
“Don’t be rude, Doc.” Raven pouts and realizes she kind of enjoys teasing Abby more than she probably should. Even laying down Raven still feels slightly dizzy, but how can she or Abby really tell if it is not from the fresh—and not generated—air they breathe for the first time in their lives. “I have a concussion. I’m not responsible for my actions.”  
  
Abby snorts and it’s such an undignified sound, that Raven can’t help her smile and turns her head to the side to hide it from Abby.  
  
“You might have a concussion. This is only a precaution. And I will most certainly hold you responsible for your actions.” Abby says, all the while trying to pry open a hatch on the side of the pod that holds their backpacks. It’s kind of high from the ground and without a ladder to reach it, Abby has to stretch her entire body to even touch it with her fingers. Her shirt rides up as she leans up and Raven absentmindedly appreciates the smooth plane of her back, how her muscles shift and work under the tanned skin. When she realizes what she is doing, Raven blames it on her concussion, no matter what Abby has to say about it.  
  
The panel clicks open and Raven is impressed how Abby has worked around the height obstacle without much fuss and the doctor pushes the hatch open after only a few minutes.  
  
“Good job.” Raven calls from her spot on the blanket watching as Abby leans with her back against the pod, facing Raven. “I’m impressed.”  
  
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” Abby says, slightly out of breath. Her cheeks are dusted pink and the corners of her lips twitch upwards. “Two more hours for you. I’m not going to let you off earlier.”  
  
Raven pouts for a moment, but then says, “seriously though, you should have gone into another career path. Maybe something with your hands, like something handier.”  
  
Abby shoots her an incredulous look. “You want to tell me as a doctor, doing surgery and saving lives, I am not handy enough for you?” Abby raises a brow, wriggling her fingers. “I’ll have you know I’m perfectly good with my hands.”  
  
The smirk rises to Raven’s lips unbidden, even though she tries not to go there. Didn't even consider it in the first place, with her rather innocent comment. But then Abby is just too easy sometimes and Raven won’t ignore it when the doctor hands her something so precious on a silver plate.  
  
“I’m sure you are, Abby.” She aims for tongue in cheek, but ends up somewhere close to salacious.  
  
Raven presses her lips together to fight the smirk down, but she can’t help it. She can practically watch from the outside when Abby catches on to her meaning.

"Wouldn't you like to know." Abby says in return and honest to god winks at her. Somehow it sounds dirty enough to make Raven flush with sudden, vigorous heat of what must be embarrassment? And why is Abby able to do that at all?

Abby laughs at her--and probably--about her, then begins to heave their backpacks down from the open hatch and Raven is more than happy to be let off the hook.

"I can help you with that, you just need to wait." Raven struggles to shrug off the tingly sensation that still courses through her body and most certainly feels not entirely platonic.  
  
"That's fine, I don't mind." Abby calls over her shoulder and Raven can't help the smile as Abby grunts at the heaviness of Raven’s bag, heaving it from the pod with an exhausted exhale.  
  
"For heaven sake what did you put in here?" Eyebrows raised Abby turns to her breathing heavily when she finally has set it down next to her own on the ground.  
  
"Wouldn't you like to know, Doc." Raven singsongs back at her, crossing her arms behind her head.  
  
"I would actually."  
  
Raven hums as she contemplates her answer. "It's everything I own, it all fit into that backpack. And maybe one or two tools that I borrowed."  
  
"Borrowed?" Abby gives her a look that says she doesn't believe a word, but also doesn't care. "It might not be much Raven, but it certainly is heavy.." Abby brushes a few strands that have come loose from her ponytail out of her face. "Is there anything else we need to take with us for now?" I mean we can still come back later for anything from the pod, right?"  
  
"I guess.. Could you bring me the radio and the small black pouch on the side pocket of my backpack though? I'd like to check it again, maybe it's just not working because a wire got loose."  
  
"Alright, but please stop tinkering with it as soon as you feel you're getting dizzy or nauseous. It's just going to get worse if you overdo it."  
  
"Yes, ma’am" Raven says, and gives her a small salute, which loses some of the effect with her lying flat on her back, but it makes Abby grin through her fake annoyance nonetheless as she places the radio and the requested tools next to Raven on the blanket.  
  
"We have ration bars and water which should last us for a few days. I'd like to see if we can find something else so we don't rely on the ration bars too heavily in case it takes us longer to find the camp than we planned."  
  
"Sounds good to me." Raven pries open the outer casing of the radio with a screwdriver. "What do you have in mind?"  
  
"I thought I'd look around and see if I can find some fruit or something?" Abby looks kind of excited at the prospect, which seems ridiculous. But then they have spent the entirety of their lives on board a metal box in space, where nature and fruits on trees as high as the sky are nothing but things they have seen in books and old tv-shows.  
  
"I’m kind of jealous that while I'm stuck with bed rest, you get to check out the cool stuff."  
  
"You'll have plenty of time to explore every inch thoroughly soon enough." Abby reassures. She crouches down besides Raven and gives her shoulder a little squeeze. "You got everything you need?" She asks in a quiet, honest tone that makes Raven almost uncomfortable with its intimacy. Abby stands back up slowly when Raven nods.  
  
"There's a knife in my backpack, take it?" Raven doesn't look at Abby when she says it, but glances up eventually when she can’t see Abby move in the periphery of her vision. "Just in case," Raven adds. "You need to cut your fruit down with something, right?"  
  
"Mhm.. " Abby hums and Raven takes it as agreement when Abby retrieves the knife carefully from her backpack. "I won't go further than shouting distance. So call out for me when you need anything." Abby looks seriously down at her. "Please, don't get up in the meantime."  
  
"Won't do Doc. Be safe."

 

* * *

 

Later in the evening—when Raven is finally released from her bed rest—they discover the area around them by hiking up a small hill. The view is beautiful and the intense heat of midday has given way to mild, pleasant weather. From the elevated spot she and Abby can see the ocean, clear and blue, stretching as far as the eye can see.

They made it close to the coast and with the radio damaged it’s the best news they could get. That means the rest of the hundred kids must be also nearby, if they are still alive. Raven believes that they can't be too far off their estimated landing spot; even though it might take them a few days to get to the other landing site. They can't see the drop ship from their elevated spot, but Raven knows it doesn't have to mean anything.

According to the calculations from the Ark and its telemetry, the drop ship has landed approximately 50 miles inland, plus-minus a few miles depending on the point of departure. When they move a little faster than the average speed of three miles per hour, they can make it to that point in 12 hours, give or take.

 

* * *

  
The next morning at first light, Raven takes out the compass from the pod. She hopes it might be still working, despite the short circuit that has fried the rest of the electronic systems. At the very least it would prevent them from running in circles.  
  
“No... no no this can't be.” Raven is not talking to Abby--is not even consciously noticing her presence anymore. Only the device in her hand matters, the damaged device that is telling her lies.  
  
“What is it?” Abby turns to face her, eyebrows slightly raised.  
  
“No.. no,” Raven repeats quietly over and over like a mantra. It sounds more desperate each time the word falls from her lips. “This can't be right.”  
  
It must be broken.  
  
“Raven, what’s wrong?” Abby sounds alarmed now, unused of Raven’s erratic behavior. Raven is calm, inappropriate at times, but never erratic. But Raven does not hear her, does not listen. Only when Abby grasps Raven’s arm the younger woman finally looks up, eyeing her warily as if Abby just appeared in front of her out of thin air.  
  
It has to be broken.  
  
“Listen, we made it to the coast and now we'll work from here. The camp can’t be too far off, give or take fifty miles inland, right?!” Abby says as calmly as Raven has ever heard her, but it does nothing to settle her flaring devastation.  
  
Raven tries to convince herself that what she thinks she is reading is wrong. She recalls everything she has learned about using the sun for navigation. They are on the northern hemisphere. That means north is to the left, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Raven clutches the compass in her hand so tightly that the sharp metal edges cut into her skin.  
  
There are tears brimming in her eyes now, but Raven doesn't care. Doesn’t care that Abby sees them. Doesn't care that her voice breaks when she speaks. “It's the wrong one.” She waits for her words to sink in, waits for the gleam of hope in Abby's eyes to perish.  
  
Raven holds up the compass for Abby to see. According to her calculations it should point them west, but it doesn't. The delicate needle points east instead.  
  
Abby blinks uncomprehendingly. Her hand reaches up to close around Raven’s wrist on autopilot, pulling the compass closer, desperate and clumsy.  
  
A tear slides down Raven’s cheek and in the sunlight it glistens like a diamond.

“It's the wrong coast, Abby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Any Feedback is -as always- very much appreciated!)


	4. Of Physicals & Floating Bodies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (For all still wondering: Raven and Abby are on the west coast of the (former) U.S. and the 100 are on the east coast.)

  
It has been two days since they crash–landed on Earth. It is not quite midnight as Abby wakes Raven with a hand on her shoulder and a shaky whisper from a dreamless sleep.  
  
Neither Raven nor Abby take the sudden appearance on the firmament for a random occasion. The myriad of falling stars is cruel in its devastating beauty. Abby sits quietly next to her on a blanket, arms tightly wrapped around herself. Her transfixed glance directed above. Raven can feel the heat of her body beside her, but they are not quite touching. It feels kind of wrong to seek comfort in the face of tragedy, when a part of her believes they are to blame. Their failure—or maybe only her very own—caused this to happen. If they had just landed on the east coast instead …  
  
Three hundred and twenty people have been floated from the Ark. _For nothing._ The glowing embers of their bodies light up the night sky like ancient fireworks. Re-entry temperatures can reach as high as three thousand degrees. Therefore the bodies do not even burn to ash in the atmosphere. Nothing of the lives once lived remains—nothing but the memories of those who are left behind. Vanished without a trace as they conclude their last journey in the planets atmosphere. _And for what?_ The question runs through her mind in a loop, leaving a bitter taste. _For absolutely fucking nothing._  
  
Raven tries to count every single one of them, for some kind of remembrance, in respect and deepest humility; for their sacrifice that even with the passing of time will not be forgotten, but then, there are just far too many. She loses count.

 

* * *

  
  
Abby barely speaks for a couple days after and Raven begins to wonder how they are going to survive out here. All by themselves. This is not how they've planned this to happen, not at all. There was option number 1: touch down close to the drop-ship, join with the hundred kids who are hopefully still jolly and in best health—or option number 2: they die. _This… this was not part of the plan._  
  
No one is going to come looking for them. For all Chancellor Jaha knows, Abby and she died at some point after re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Most likely as the pod deviated from flight schedule and spiraled in a mad dash towards the surface. No one will even care enough to confirm whether they are dead or alive. Not that they actually had any means to do so…  
  
The pod certainly looks like they both should have died at impact. At least judging by the hull of the wrecked spacecraft. The electronic is also completely fried. But then again they are not in range to contact anyone.  
  
Raven still tinkers with the radio from the pod. There is still a small chance she might fix it some day. She is a mechanical genius after all. Maybe they will stumble across some spare parts she can use. Abby has come to loathe the small device, at least after it had become clear it wouldn't work anytime soon (or ever). It might be Raven’s imagination, but she swears she sees Abby scowl at it from time to time. Like it is mocking the doctor on purpose with its abilities—there, yet out of reach. Raven’s feelings are quite similar, but she still enjoys to have a purpose, a challenge, a problem to fix. If nothing else.  
  
When her hands are hurting, fingertips numb from holding the tools and tiny screws, Raven sits on the beach for hours and stares at the ocean. Its foreign magic calms her in a way she did not know she needed—or even wanted. She listens to the never-ending waves as they roll ashore and watches shrieking birds circle the blue sky above.  
  
Even on a breathtaking day on Earth like this, Raven has to realize that the hopelessness of their reality can no longer be ignored. Especially with its glaring permanence. The pod is destroyed beyond repair, the radio is useless and three hundred people lost their lives for their failure.  
  
All their efforts have been for nothing.  
  
And Abby and she are stuck on the other side of the continent, which could just as well have been the other side of the planet itself.

 

* * *

  
  
„Would you sit down here please?” Abby asks one morning, pointing to the fallen tree trunk before her. “I promise it will only take a moment."  
  
Raven narrows her eyes, looking in Abby‘s features for a clue, but gets none. “Why exactly?”  
  
“I would like to do a quick physical examination.”  
  
Raven sighs, scrubbing her free hand across her face. “I’m fine, Abby. But thanks!?”  
  
“I’m sure you are. Let me take a look anyway?”  
  
“I feel fine! Better than fine actually.”  
  
“Please?” Abby asks, her smile hopeful. “It would really make me feel a lot better, if you would.”  
  
Raven looks at her, her annoyance quickly fading at Abby's honest admission. She really can't say no to that now, can she? What kind of person would that make of her.  
  
“Alright. What do you need me to do?” Raven says as she sits down on the trunk, palms stretched out against the rough bark.  
  
“Nothing really, just stay there. I will ask a few questions which I need you to answer honestly, please.”  
  
She really doesn’t know what it is, but something about the statement bugs her. To Raven it sounds like Abby is implying that her honesty had been a problem in the past.  
  
"Are you suggesting I am lying to you on a regular basis?" Raven asks and it comes out a little harsher than she originally intended.  
  
"No,” Abby takes a step back and holds her hands up in a placating gesture. “Of course not." Abby seems taken aback and now kind of irritated herself.  
  
Raven feels instantly ashamed for being the cause for it. She trusts Abby. Never doubted her intentions—at least not since they have gotten to know each other better while working on the pod. Today she just has not the best of days. She feels still on edge from the crash, the almost concussion and among all other things she had to come to terms with Finn. Or rather the lack of him.    
  
"I just meant that patients tend to downplay minor symptoms.. " Abby continues to explain herself and Raven curls her hand against the bark. "…like a bruise or an ache, but it is vitally important to tell me every detail—even if it is just a small one and usually not worth mentioning." Abby looks at her oddly, scrutinizing before she reaches out to cup Raven cheek in a warm dry hand, tilting up her head so their eyes meet. "Are you okay?"  
  
Raven leans into the touch before she even realizes what she is doing. As she pulls back carefully, she forces a smile onto her lips that is only there for Abby's benefit. "I will be."  
  
Raven clears her throat. “Alright hit me with your super important questions.”  
  
To Raven’s relief Abby shifts into her doctor mode without so much as a second of hesitation.  
  
“Any signs of nausea or dizziness?” Abby leans down to Raven’s eye level and begins with her examination. Strong, clean fingers grasp her face first, dabbing over her skin methodically in a recurring pattern.  
  
"Nope, just the last remnants of the hit to the head. But nothing major since you made me lay down for a few."  
  
"Good. How is the headache?" Abby then turns Raven’s head from one side to the other.  
  
"Still there—sometimes, but only slightly. Getting better by the minute."  
  
"Disorientation?"  
  
"Apart from not knowing where we are exactly?"  
  
Abby gives her a stern look.  
  
"Nope, then not." Raven lips curl into a smile despite herself, and Abby returns it before continuing her check-up.  
  
"Soreness of the throat? Any pain here?" Abby palpates the skin over her thyroid carefully. Even though it is just a clinical examination the touch itself still feels nice and Raven feels somehow creepy for enjoying it. But it has been so long since another human being actually touched her, even if it is just in a completely innocent manner just as this. The fingers against her skin are soft and warm and Raven closes her eyes to avoid looking in Abby's face when she asks her question. "You think we are going to kick the bucket soon from radiation poisoning?"  
  
Abby keeps quiet for such a long moment and her fingers still against Raven's skin. They are not moving away or move at all, just carefully lay on her skin, that Raven does not think she is going to answer, but then Abby says very carefully, "I would want…” she hesitates and swallows thickly before she continues, “to be prepared, if it should turn out to be the case."  
  
What she does not say—is not able to say out loud—is that it would also mean that her daughter and all those other kids are already dead. A part from that, there is the matter of her and Abby dying very soon too—and very, very nasty at that.  
  
"How did you..?" Abby trails off, leaving the blanks for Raven to fill.  
  
"Well, symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, erythema and fever are the most common clinical symptoms of Acute Radiation Syndrome. I might not be from medical, but I did work in Zero-G. I learned about radiation. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if every single one of those hundred kids they sent down here can quote the symptoms in their sleep—with Earths history, classes and all."  
  
"Yes…, yes of course you are right." Abby seems to consider this and Raven hopes that she is not going to quiz her for more, because in truth this is all she can remember. She might get together the measurements and types, if she rummages through her memory just thoroughly enough, but nothing beyond that.  
  
But when Raven looks at her more closely, Abby's gaze is turned away and directed somewhere in the distance, eyes clouded over. Raven is sure that she does not see anything of the breathtaking nature around them. Her features look like she is reliving days of a past lifetime, has escaped into a memory that has nothing to do with what is their reality now. Raven watches her for a minute or so until Abby seems to startle out of it, obviously unaware of how much time has passed and turns her gaze back onto Raven. "Could you turn around and lift up your shirt, please?"  
  
Raven nods and scrambles from the tree, shaking out her left leg that has started to go numb while she sat. She turns around and lifts her shirt up until it bunches at her shoulder blades. A moment or two passes before she feels the pads of Abby's fingers slide over her bare skin and Raven bites back a small sigh that almost escapes her at the sensation. She is quite certain though, that Abby will notice the goosebumps that rise on her skin despite the warm temperatures.  
  
"All looks normal to me, no redness, no burns." Raven hears and feels Abby step away and pulls her shirt back down with a little bit more force than necessary.  
  
Raven turns to face her and Abby looks relieved—if it is for Raven or her own sake—Raven cannot possibly say. Maybe for the both of them. Maybe just for Clarke.  
  
"As much as I have enjoyed this," Raven murmurs, letting sarcasm bleed into her tone. “Please do not think this is going to be a regular thing. This was a favour. I am feeling fine. And I promise to let you know as soon as I start puking my guts out."  
  
Abby just makes a noncommittal noise in response and gives Raven a little wave as she walks off.

 

* * *

  
  
The physical in the morning becomes a regular thing, much to Raven’s chargrin. After the first day Abby forced it on her and a very smug doctor does a quick check-up on a rather grumpy patient. Abby scribbles her findings into a small leather-bound book with worn pages and black ink. Each time she finishes with the same concluding entry: ’Patient shows no indication of ARS; long term exposure cannot be determined, no gastrointestinal effects can be determined yet either’.  
  
Raven has come to realize, that she should not deprive Abby of the only thing she has left that gives her hope. When Raven stays healthy, Clarke must be healthy too. She and the others simply must.  
  
Apart from the morning exam, life is rather peaceful and Abby gives Raven time and space to process the inevitable.  
  
Raven assumes she might need a little time and space to herself too.  
  
They do not talk about Clarke or Finn. Nor about the possibility that they could have been dead long before Raven and Abby got onto a spaceship and traveled through space to get down here.

 

* * *

  
  
"Alright, let’s grab your things and go."  
  
It has been about two weeks since they landed and built a small campsite near the wreckage of the pod. There is also a small river with drinkable water nearby that flows at some point into the ocean. Raven spends most of her time apart from Abby who is growing more and more restless with their continuous inactivity.  
  
"Go where?" Raven shields her eyes from the blinding sun so she can look up at Abby. The doctor has come to stand beside her, bare toes wriggling in the golden sand. She looks different on the ground, more relaxed, younger. But then Raven had never seen her in shorts and a tank-top at a beach before to accommodate the heat. With her hair dancing in the wind, the beginning of a tan and a few freckles on her face, she looks nothing like the Head of Medical nor the Councilwoman Raven remembers from the Ark.  
  
But then all the memories of the Ark are a little hazy already and will eventually fade too. It is only a matter of time now, Raven realizes, until the faces of all the people she knew are going to blur together as one, and then at last, vanish completely from her mind.  
  
Abby nudges her side with a toe and pulls Raven back to the here and now. "To the camp of course." She answers casually, as if it was just around the corner and they had only been hanging out on this particular beach for an afternoon outing.  
  
"Clarke is there… and I am sure Finn would like to see his girlfriend alive and well too."  
  
Raven cannot help the snort. "Yeah, because after months of traveling across a continent, he will still be my boyfriend. He will still be there and has been waiting for me—sure thing."  
  
The look on Abby's face tells her she does not truly believe it either. It makes it worse somehow and Raven wants to not talk about it further.  
  
"You don't know that." Abby says nonetheless.  
  
"Abby, he is a teenage boy and it will be at least four months until we would get there. If we get there at all—I'm not sure how you think we would manage it…but that is besides the point.. It would have been at least five months after Finn and I have seen each other last. Do you really think he is going to wait that long for me? Either thinking I am still in space or maybe even dead?"  
  
Raven laughs, dry and bitter. "Even if they miraculously managed to make contact with the Ark, Jaha can only confirm that we are missing—that we most likely died while trying to come down here. There is no reason for him to wait!" She sighs and lets out a long shuddering breath. "If this is not a death sentence for a relationship, I really don't know what is. I am not stupid. And I really do not want to talk about him."  
  
Abby keeps quiet, looking slightly uncomfortable at the can of worms she has opened unintentionally. Raven is grateful for the moment of silence and tries to get her shit back together. They both know she is right and Raven does not need platitudes from a (practically) stranger to soften the blow.  
  
"Well… I am going." Abby declares after a moment of watching the waves break against the shore, toes curling into the sand.  
  
"Good luck with that." Raven mutters, still angry—not in particular at Abby—just in general. And well.. the doctor is the only one left she can let it out on. So…  
  
"Oh no," Abby huffs, and she sounds so over-the-top outrageous and scolding that it makes Raven smile despite herself. "You are coming!"  
  
"You can't make me." Raven vows, looking pointedly away, not caring that she sounds like a petulant brat. She will wait Abby out on this one.  
  
"Watch me." Abby hums humorously and leans down quickly, grabbing both of Raven's hands but manages only to clutch one tightly enough as Raven tries to escape her hold. She starts pulling Raven through the sand, laughing and panting at once, somewhere in the direction of their impromptu campsite.  
  
"Abby!" Raven complains and struggles to wriggle her hand free out of Abby's grip, but it is tight and strong, and there is no way she can get out of it. "Let me go!"  
  
"Are you done with your pity party and ready to get moving?" Abby does not let go of her hand, but she has stopped at last, grinning down at Raven who is sprawled out in the sand. She is clearly waiting for Raven to say yes—or otherwise she is going to pull Raven further down the beach and in all likelihood the entire three-thousand miles back to the camp where Clarke is hopefully still alive. Raven knows that stubborn look on Abby's face—since the physical incident—only too well.  
  
"Yeah," Raven sighs dramatically, wondering how she can still feel happy despite everything.  
  
"Good." Abby looks kind of adorable in her smug satisfaction as she lets Raven go and her arms fall in a great gesture into the sand.  
  
"Do get over yourself, Doc." Raven grumbles in fake irritation as she stands slowly, brushing white fine sand of off her legs and arms. "I am just agreeing to this because I have nothing better to do. And you will get yourself killed—obviously—without me around. You are practically live bait."  
  
Abby laughs at that so unabashedly that it brings a genuine smile to Raven’s face for the first time in days. Raven thinks it is a sound she would like to hear more often. It makes the dire circumstances they are facing somehow a little less.. dire.  
  
48 hours later, Raven revisits that exact moment briefly in her memory, all the while trying to remember how long it will take for the poison to kill her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Any Feedback is -as always- very much appreciated!)


	5. Of Travels & Venom

 

 

It is early in the morning and Raven watches the sun rise over the ocean for the last time, at least for a while. They are about to start on an insane cross country journey, that Abby still insists on. 

 

Raven has come to enjoy those moments of serenity at the beach and feels kind of sad leaving it behind. Even if she knows that Abby is right. They cannot possibly stay here forever. She also knows that she herself as well as the doc would get bored sooner rather than later--all the time wondering how the others have fared so far. 

 

The waves splash against the shore, calm and evenly. Her mind wanders to all the adventures that still lay before them and how long their journey may take and if they both come out of it unscathed. With a last glance towards the glistening water, Raven stands from the beach, inhaling the salty air deep into her lungs, then walks slowly back to the pods landing side were Abby is surely up and about already.

 

They have both packed their things and stuffed the remaining small space with all the fruits they could gather. Over the last few days, Raven had taken the inside of the pod apart and ripped out whatever she thought might be useful in the future. When they reach the camp there will be a life waiting for her and she is going to need most likely everything she can get her hands onto. 

 

The pack she brought from the Ark would have been perfectly suited for a fifty miles trek. 3000 miles however is unimaginable and daunting even to her. It is super heavy and stuffed with tools and repair-kits. It is stupid, she knows, but then can't decide on anything she wants to leave behind. As she packed them, she never considered carrying them across an entire continent though. It had been hard enough to make all those choices once, she isn't going to do it again. She will try to carry all as long as she can. When the time for hard choices comes about, she will deal with it then. 

 

It is one thing she always keeps in mind, namely, that whatever they leave behind now is gone forever. There will be no turning back. This is a journey is one of no return or second chances.

 

Abby told her that she did some research about edible foods on Earth before they came down here and the doctor had all the information available on the Ark to study. Even if they had landed where they were supposed to, it would have come in handy for a future life on Earth. Now even more so, since Raven did not really consider it beforehand, so she is kind of grateful to have a considerate traveling partner such as Abigail Griffin at her side. 

 

The area adjacent to the beach is practically a rain-forest as much as she can tell anyway. She is no expert for vegetation either. On the Ark, Raven remembers books from her childhood that told of magical things like forests and animals. Now on Earth, it is even more breathtaking than she'd ever imagined and pinches her arm, reminding herself that this is real.

 

* * *

 

One day later, they set out early in the morning, just as the sun tips over the top of the trees.

 

They leave the wreckage of the pod with a message scribbled onto the hull, that they are heading for the east coast, to join Clarke and the others. Noted with date and their names, they leave it behind for the unlikely event that someone else from the Ark might come upon the spacecraft. Or… whatever. Raven cannot really think of a scenario where this might actually happen, but she and Abby agree on leaving it anyway.

 

They walk through the forest for about five hours, when Raven's back hurts so intensely that she asks Abby for another break. They had made a few short ones, to regain some strength, hydrate and eat some fresh fruit. Raven could kick herself already for taking along so many ass-heavy tools. This is only the first day and she is already completely exhausted. But she can't give them up . Not now. Not yet.

 

The moist heat, searing and stifling, does not make it easier on them either. Abby sits on a big rock across from her, wiping the fine sheen of sweat on her forehead off with the back of her hand. "Are you as beat as I am?" She asks between heavy breaths and a mirthful chuckle.

 

"Absolutely." Raven moans loudly in an overly dramatic fashion that is totally valid in this particular situation. Her feet hurt like hell and her back feels like it is broken into a thousand little pieces.

 

"What would you say if we look for a suitable spot to spend the night and turn in early today? Save some energy for tomorrow?"

 

"Oh gosh, thank all gods you feel the same." Raven smiles back at her in relief and takes a sip from her water bottle. "I thought you might chase me until we reach our agreed eight hour quota."

 

"I would have, if I didn't feel like keeling over any second."

 

"You are an evil woman."

 

"You don’t know half of it." Abby smirks and stands with wobbling knees under the load of her own backpack. "Let’s go. The sooner we find a spot for our camp the sooner we can get some rest."

 

* * *

 

The night is calm and mostly quiet. Abby is fast asleep before her head even hits the pillow. It is the first night they share the emergency tent and Raven is too exhausted to think much about it. Even if it just has a thin fabric on the outer hull, it feels kind of safe.

 

She listens to Abby's calm breath as the sound flutters into the quiet night. Somehow it feels strange to sleep close to another person again, but she realizes that she truly doesn't mind. Actually it is kind of nice even.

 

Raven dreams of tanned skin and bright laughter. Of dead cold space and a hand squeezing her own.

 

* * *

 

Shortly after sunrise, Abby has already prepared breakfast and Raven wakes to the sound of clanging metal.

 

They both sit close to the fire, boiling the water for their later use. Abby bites into a ripe, orange flesh of a fruit called mango and the excess juice travels down her chin and Raven catches herself staring with a sense of longing to lick it off. The thought as it enters her conscious mind, shakes her with a fair bit of trepidation. Heat rises to her neck unbidden and Raven is once more grateful that the doctor is not privy to her thoughts.

 

The area around them is rich with fruits to harvest and they are easily able to restock their provisions as soon as they can consume them. 

 

The first birds are chirping and the air around them fills with ancient tunes. They get ready fast to head out before the heat gets too intense. 

 

At midday the sun burns down on them from the highest point in the sky and despite the unreal looking palm leafs that spent shadowy relief, the humid heat still causes them a great deal of trouble. 

 

"This eight hour quota..." Raven groans, pushing another bush to the side so that Abby can step through the gap in front of her. "Might be burning the candle at both ends."

 

Abby looks back at her over her shoulder. "I agree." Her face is reddened from the exertion and judging by the bulging veins under the skin, Raven can see that her travel companion is not in better shape than she is herself. "It can't be done. At least not under those weather conditions." 

 

Two hours before dark they find a place to make camp for the night and once the tent is put up, they explore the territory around them on the lookout for food and water. Just like every evening. Raven can’t say she minds running around without that backpack of hers, that is most likely weighing several tons.

 

A few minutes into their walk they already hear the murmur and ripple of water. The lake that stretches out before their eyes is huge and with water so clear as Raven has ever seen it. 

 

The waterfall pouring over a cliff from high above into the lake is something that has them both stand awed and overwhelmed by it's sheer beauty for a minute or two.

 

After the long hot day and the enormous strain of their trek, Raven doesn't even think twice, before she slips out of her pants and shirt and dives into the water, that is cool and refreshing, exactly as she’d hoped.

 

When she breaks the water-surface again, Abby still remains rooted to the spot at the edge. 

 

"Get in, Doc." Raven calls to her and watches Abby, who still just seems to watch Raven as she wades through the water, now only waist high. With a brush of her hand, she slicks her wet hair back, then looks down at her body and her black underwear, that is now soaked and clinging to her body.

 

She watches as Abby bites down on her lip, then seems to shake out of whatever state of trance she was caught in.

 

"Do you like it?" She asks, and it sounds raw and dirty somehow, that a surge of heat courses through Raven despite the cold water.

 

She meets Abby’s gaze head on and holds it. It feels dangerously intimate all of the sudden and Raven can't make herself break the connection. "It's.. satisfying." She whispers, afraid to shatter whatever bond holds them tied together.

 

Eventually Abby does, looking away. Her cheeks are dusted pink as she wriggles out of her clothes. As she is left standing just in underwear in front of her, Raven swallows hard, her mouth suddenly dry. Abby slips down into the water and then dives until she has reached the middle of the lake, breaking the surface with a spluttering gasp. Raven tries not to stare, tries not to follow with her eyes as the water trickles down Abby's skin to her chest like small glistening diamonds. 

 

Abby leaves for the camp ten minutes later, leaving Raven behind to think about long legs and a certain, taunt stomach. 

 

* * *

 

It is kind of a dream come true, Raven thinks. Now she can swim in a lake and stand beneath a waterfall that she once only knew from pictures. 

 

The lake is shallow for the most part, but falls down deeply around the center and Raven almost loses her footing. She flails back into safe waters where she can stand and the water just reaches as high as her ribcage. Of course, she has no idea how to swim properly. But then there was no real necessity or chance to learn it in space. Being submerged in the water is wondrous though, not comparable at all to a sonic shower on the Ark.

 

There is a sting on her thigh and Raven brushes her fingers over the skin, but she finds nothing. The sun begins to set, bathing the trees and rocks surrounding the lake in an ethereal glow. She realizes it is time to head back to the small camp she and Abby have scrambled together. Raven wades through the water, the sand giving way beneath her toes, towards the rim where her clothes lie in a messy heap on the ground. Her arms glide in and out of the water, causing waves to ripple over the entirety of the surface until ebbing out against the edge.

 

Abby must be back at their campsite by now and has most likely a fire going already. There is a light chill in the air that has Raven reaching for her shirt as soon as she slips out of the lake.

 

Thinking back to when Abby had joined her has warmth rise to her neck and face unbidden. Raven doesn’t really know why her body reacted the way it did, only that.. well it did. She can admit that the doctor is an attractive woman--for her age. As soon as the thought crosses her mind, it doesn't sit well with her. Abby is older than her, but Raven doesn't know how much. And somehow it doesn't matter, because is age is just an number that does not define people or how one is supposed to feel or not feel about them. 

 

Raven blinks against a sudden bout of dizziness. That is odd. Maybe she didn't drink enough during the day. She reaches down for her water and takes a healthy sip from the silver bottle, the lukewarm liquid washes away a bitter taste in her mouth. She squeezes the excess water from her hair and reaches down for her pants. As she pulls the hem of her shirt down, Raven notices an angry red blotch of skin on her thigh. Leaning closer, she can make out two distinct marks in close vicinity. Her vision blurs again and since when hammers her heart so hard against her chest?  Uh oh. Skimming her fingers over the puncture wounds Raven hisses at the sudden pain coursing through her entire leg.  This is not good. Not good at all. She rips a stripe off of her shirt and binds it together just above the bite-marks on her thigh, a move she has seen in one of the old movies and she has no idea if she is even doing it right.

 

With her pants in one hand and the bottle in the other, Raven scrambles to make her way back to the campsite where Abby hopefully waits for her. Abby will know what to do. Abby always knows what to do. The world around her tilts precariously and Raven has to concentrate where she puts her feet down on the uneven ground, hardly keeping her balance. One step in front of the other. One. Two. She walks for about five minutes, stopping briefly with a hand against a palm tree to take a breath.  Is breathing suddenly harder than it was before? Did this twig just move? Is it a twig at all or something else? Raven jerks herself away from the tree and almost loses her footing, stumbling over something on the ground. Her thigh pulsates with a throbbing pain with each step she takes.The ground sways beneath her. Has the camp been that far away before? To her budding horror, Raven can't remember.

 

“Abby?” She calls and hopes the doctor will somehow hear her. She listens closely into the dusk, but hears nothing but the chirping of crickets and birds tweeting.  Has she even called out loud? Or did she just think about doing it?  Raven touches her forehead. It is cold and clammy despite the fact she has just bathed. The fine sheet of sweat clinging to her skin does not make her feel better either.

 

“Abby?” Raven calls out into the waning light. She looks around for the campsite, but still can't make it out anywhere. Panic creeps up in her, making her throat feel uncomfortable tight.  This is bad. Really, really bad.

 

Raven forces herself to move forward and keep her shit together. This must be what it feels like to have a bad trip or something..  She never did drugs. But she has seen her fair share of people who did, who got broken by it—and some being floated. 

 

The big tree ahead looks somehow like she recognizes it..  But does she really?  Raven tries to remember anything that seems familiar from the route they took to get here. But every tree, every bush looks as any other. Everything is just green, oh so fucking green, around her--leaves and branches hang low everywhere. She can't even see very far. 

 

The sun has dropped down further, dipping the forest around her in an orange glow. It is beautiful and Raven gets distracted by the golden rays peeking through the foliage.  Focus...  she reminds herself. If she does not make it to the camp soon she will probably just keel over and die alone and helpless--and that shortly after she battled all odds to get down to Earth. And she doesn't even know what has caused this. It looks like an insect bite, maybe.. or maybe something bigger? Yeah, it sure does look bigger than that. Raven shudders involuntarily at the thought. No more bathing in mysterious lakes then. 

 

A loud shriek sounds in the distance and a flock of birds dart out from beneath the foliage close to where she is standing. Raven is frozen to the spot, eyes wandering, searching the area around her frantically.  What was that? The birds wouldn't fly away like this if there was nothing there, right? Her mind is spinning and she can't really capture a thought for longer than a few seconds.  Run,  her mind tells her.  Run, if you want to live.

 

Raven runs. Low hanging branches and ferns smack into her face as she darts between trees.  Run faster, run. It is coming. It's almost there--it comes for you.

 

Her heart is pounding so loud in her ears, that she can't make out any other sound anymore. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. She is loosing it. Somewhere in a deep corner of her mind, where she can still think rationally, she knows it. But she can't help it.  Run,  her mind whispers again, dark and dangerous, and she runs faster--stumbles and goes down. 

 

"Raven?" Abby's gravelly voice, even with a startled tint to it--feels like balm to her tumultuous soul. "What's going on?"

 

She can hear the amusement in Abby's voice and when she looks up from her position outstretched on the ground, Raven can see it on her face too. Raven also watches it vanish just as quickly when their eyes meet.

 

If she looks the way she feels, it most certainly justifies the concerned look on Abby's face. The doctor hurries to her feet and kneels down next to her before Raven has even time to blink. 

 

Their campsite is right there--had been there all along--and Raven feels foolish for having panicked in the first place. But her heart still beats in a fast rhythm and she can't seem to make it slow back down. The fire crackles and pops, spreading a comfortable warmth through the air. Abby has a knack for it and gets it going way faster than Raven ever does. Even without the matches.

 

"Raven, honey. What happened?“ Abby’s voice is concerned, but calm, and then there are hands on her face and Raven thinks they are far too often in a situation where Abby needs to check up on her. The doctor brushes dirt off of Raven's face and her hand comes back a little bloody.  Damn branches. And did Abby just really call her honey?

 

“Here,” Abby helps her into a sitting position and presses an open water bottle against her lips. Only when Raven starts gulping down the liquid she realizes how thirsty she was. Her mind clears a little and the world around her comes slowly a little sharper into focus. A wet cloth is pressed to her face and Abby dabs it to her face, cleaning the skin until she looks satisfied. 

 

“What is this?” Abby asks and Raven follows the doctor’s gaze down to her thigh, where the shred of fabric is miraculously still in place, ligating her leg.

 

“I think something bit me?” Raven tells her, once she can see clearly and the world has stopped spinning. Cringing inwardly as she looks down, realizing she still clutches the pants in her hand and practically sits half naked and only in her boy-shorts and a ripped shirt in front of Abby. It shouldn’t matter, really, but somehow  it does. Raven tries to push those thoughts away but then Abby’s fingers tap against her thigh and Raven can’t concentrate on anything else than how soft her fingertips are and the tingling sensation they unleash into her body. 

 

“Did you see what it was?” Abby asks, her face scrunched in concentration. 

 

“Nope.” Raven says, flinching when the doctor’s fingers get closer to the bite-marks. There is a red blotch around the entry wounds and the skin looks swollen. “Happened in the water I guess.” 

 

“How long ago?” Abby gets up and walks over to where their backpacks are stacked on each other and retrieves the med kit Raven knows only too well from her routine check-ups each morning.

 

“Uhm..” Raven tries to remember how long she has stumbled lost through the forest in search for their campsite. “Half an hour? Maybe forty minutes?”

 

Abby gazes up at her sharply, eyes narrowing. When Abby doesn’t say a word, Raven grows uneasy with the perpetual silence. Her heart still thrums unsteady in her chest. “What?”

 

Her lips press into a thin line before Abby finally replies, “Raven, I left you at the lake about twenty minutes ago.”

 

Raven wants to deny it, wants to say that is abso-fucking-loutely ridiculous, but the more she thinks about it, she can’t really tell for sure how much time has passed.  Had it been only twenty minutes since she left the lake and the dangers lurking in its shadows?  Raven swallows thickly and focuses her gaze back to Abby’s worried one.

 

Abby gets a penlight from her med kit and leans down, her palm cool against Raven’s throbbing, overheated skin. 

 

“It looks like a snake bite,” Abby murmurs, looking up, “as far as I can tell at least. It’s not an injury we had to treat on the Ark.” She smiles, but it is tight and doesn’t reach her eyes. Raven knows it is only there for her benefit. To calm the rising uneasiness that settles as a tight and heavy knot in her stomach. “It’s just small.” Abby says as she moves the penlight in direct contact with the skin and the pointed ray of light illuminates the tissue around the entry wounds.

 

"Is that good?" Raven questions, desperately wishing it is. "It's a good sign. Yes, yes it is." She doesn't look over at Abby to see the womans face over her own pep talk. The silence that follows speaks for itself.

 

"Awesome." She brushes a sheen of sweat of her brow. “What happens now?” Raven is not sure if she wants to hear the answer and watches warily as the doctor sits up again.

 

“I won’t lie to you, Raven.”

 

And this is not what she wants to hear and she would lecture Abby about her lacking bedside manner, were she not so fucking afraid of what is coming. Strong fingers slide over her palm and squeeze her hand.

 

“I have no way of knowing what we are dealing with here.” Abby sighs, but her brown eyes stay locked with Raven’s. “Even if I did know which snake it was, what kind of poison may have been injected, I’ve no means of treatment for it--nor an antidote. Even on the Ark it’s not something we kept around.”

 

“That means?” Raven asks and watches an onslaught of emotion flicker over Abby’s face before she adjusts her features back to a mask of professionalism.

 

“It could be harmless and you may only experience some minor symptoms like fever, elevated or slowed heart-rate, dry mouth, hallucinations... or .” Abby trails off and Raven doesn’t need for her to say it out loud to know what she is getting at.

 

“… or it’s deadly and we won’t know until I die.”

 

Abby just nods in tight agreement and gives her hand a squeeze, gaze trained on their intertwined fingers. She looks just as frustrated and at a loss as Raven feels. 

 

The wind picks up around them, and fleeting shadows of the fire dance over Abby’s face.

 

"Your bedside manner sucks." Raven tells her, squeezing the hand holding her own. It just seems fair to be honest before she kicks the bucket, otherwise Abby will never know. She doesn't think how that hand on hers makes her feel and how its enough to keep her on edge the entire time. 

 

To her surprise, Abby laughs, not loud but gentle and raspy. Raven enjoys the sound and her heart skips a beat. She wonders if its because of the poison... or something else entirely. 

 

"You are not the first person to tell me this." Abby answers, the mirth dying away as soon as her eyes meet Raven's. "I'll try to be better next time." 

 

She looks down again, eyes glassy. Her thumb strokes slowly back and forth over the back of Raven's hand. 

 

They sit like that for a while and Raven thinks back to the day on the beach. The way Abby had laughed and how it made her feel happy and kind of content inside--despite their fucked up situation.

 

Raven bites down on her lip, trying to force her mind to focus--all the while wondering, how long it will take for the poison to kill her.

 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a fair warning for the chapters ahead: It's going to be a very rough journey for the two of them, so I hope you're along for the ride ;)
> 
>  
> 
> (Any Feedback is -as always- very much appreciated!)


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

One night and half of the next day is all it takes. The hallucinations that began in the forest take her onto an unwilling journey and Raven can't really tell how much time has passed when she wakes for the first time. The sun already peeks through the open tent and Raven blinks against the blinding, white light. A warm hand clutches her own and as she turns her head to the side, she takes in Abby, sleeping next to her. The doctor is slumped over in a half sitting position—and it can't be comfortable to sleep like that at all.

 

“Abby.” She croaks, but her throat is dry and feels raw like sandpaper. But it seems to be enough that the other woman stirs and wakes with a start. For a second or two Raven sees her reorienting herself but then Abby's eyes fix on her and she is awake and alert in under ten seconds. It must be a trait only physicians can manage due to their many years of practice.

 

“Hey..” she tries again, and her voice sounds like from the abyss of a whiskey bottle. “Sorry to wake you from your beauty sleep Doc. But you are crushing my hand.”

 

Abby looks confused until her gaze falls on their joined hands, then she looks slightly horrified. “Oh Raven, I am sorry... I didn't mean to...” She apologizes and pulls her hand back but Raven clutches it instead, holding on. “I'm just messing with you.” Raven shoots her a good-natured grin. “Your sleeping position just looked far from comfy, so I thought I might safe you like a white knight.”

 

Abby chuckles quietly at that and squeezes her hand softly in return. Her fingers are warm and dry, and Raven feels goose-bumps rise to her skin as it elicits an electric current run trough her veins. “Thanks for saving me.” Abby says, her dark-brown eyes lighting up with blithe amusement. After a heartbeat or two she pulls back her hand and checks Raven’s pulse with two fingers to her neck and her gaze fixed on her antiquated wrist watch. And Raven knows better than to complain by now, because Abby is in her element and she won't deprive her of that, not when Abby has lost everything else, at least for the time being. Her daughter, her job and her friends. Especially after something like a major injury like this, something that could have threatened Raven's life. Something that scarred both of them more than either is ready to admit. A minute passes in silence then Abby looks up, and seems to be satisfied with her medical analysis.

 

“Can you show me your thigh?” Abby asks and rearranges her sitting position so that she faces Raven in the tent.

 

“I would show you more than just my thigh if you ask me like that.” Raven quips and wants to shove that sentence right back into her mouth. But she can't. Abby's eyes snap to hers and her heartbeat accelerates to a painful, mad throb at the intense gaze Abby fixes on her. “I mean the checkup is due too, right? Raven hastily adds, feeling the need to escape the intensity of the situation that has built around them.

 

For a long moment Abby studies her before she replies, carefully and measured. “Right.”

 

Hoping the embarrassment and something else, Raven can't distinguish, doesn't show on her face, she pushes the thermo blanket down and exposes her legs to Abby's gaze and all the way back to her ankles. She only wears a pair of dark-blue pants, short enough to just cover a third of her thigh and a simple tank top. Abby has seen her in that attire more times than she can count, but right now, it feels more intimate than all the times before. Somehow she feels exposed, but at the same time a certain kind of thrill unleashes within her, knowing that Abby studies her body with her gaze and it feels like a caress of sorts and Raven shudders involuntarily.

 

Without thinking much more about it, she stretches out her leg towards Abby and can practically see how the other woman shifts into doctor mode and begins to study the bite marks that are still visible on her skin.

 

“The swelling has gone down quite a lot.” Abby reports without looking up. She then proceeds to gently palpate the skin around the entry wounds, and Raven is not prepared for the onslaught of emotion the simple skin to skin contact evokes within her. A quiet sigh of pleasure escapes her lips without her permission.

 

Abby's eyes flicker to her, a question in her gaze. “Does that still hurt?”

 

“No.” Raven croaks and clears her throat forcefully, feeling the heat rise to the skin of her neck and face. “Just a little sensitive I guess...” She breaks the eye-contact then, looking back to where Abby's hand still rests against her thigh and dangerously close the juncture of her legs. _You are a freakin' perv, Reyes,_ she thinks depreciatingly, but it does nothing for her fluttering nerves. When Abby's fingers stroke over her skin once more, this time even closer to her center, her heart thuds so loud in her ears that she is sure Abby must be able to hear it. Biting the inside of her cheek, she tries to keep herself from reacting vocally to the fleeting touch more than she already has.

 

“Looks good to me.” Abby says after a while and--to Raven’s tremendous relief--retracts her hand from her thigh--that still tingles in the aftermath.

 

“Are we done?” She needs to know, unable to ban the note of urgency out of her voice.

 

“Ah, I can see you're better.” Abby comments nonchalantly, then pokes Raven playfully into the side. The action creates another bolt of emotion to flow through her, because Abby does act like this, doesn't touch her like this on a regular basis. “What about the exam?" Abby asks.

 

“Oww.” Raven complains halfheartedly, and swats Abby's poking fingers away. “Later? I think I need some more rest first.” Her voice breaks halfway and Abby hands her a bottle of water without being asked and Raven gulps the lukewarm liquid down greedily.

 

Abby watches her as she drinks, relief playing clearly over her features. “I'm so glad you're awake and responsive.”

 

“Abby, I'm always very responsive." Raven deadpans to regain at least some of her confidence. Abby shakes her head, fighting down a smile.

 

"Shut it.” Abby shushes and takes her penlight from her blouse pocket. “I just want to test the pupillary light reflex, then you can lie back down and I leave you be.”

 

“Deal.” Raven replies and then Abby checks the reaction of her pupils with her penlight. "Seems like the poison wasn't fatal after all."

 

"Lucky me." Raven quips darkly and Abby gives her a hard look at the sarcastic tone.

 

"You have been lucky." She just says, returning the penlight back into the pocket of her pale-blue blouse. "I'll go and get you something to eat. You need to regain your strength after this ordeal."

 

“Thanks for the house call, Doc.” Raven offers, not entirely ungrateful for the time alone to ponder her reaction to Abby's touch. But then she reasons it's a perfectly normal reaction, when one is practically touch-starved for weeks.

 

For the remainder of the day, Raven rests and for once doesn't complain to Abby about it. Even though she is bored, she knows she won't get the heavy backpack on without sinking to her knees in absolute fatigue two minutes later.

 

Before she slips back to sleep, Raven decides, she won't do the poison thing again... _It really isn't fun at all._

  

* * *

 

Abby wakes her early the next morning, because yes, the doctor seems to be a morning person, much to Raven's chagrin. But she has to admit, she feels much better than the day before. They agree to do just a few hours of walking and take it slow. When she is ready to get on with the day and slips out of the tent, she can see that Abby has already packed their backpacks.

 

"There you are." Abby says and smiles up at her. “How are you feeling today? Are you up for the trip or do you rather want to wait a day or longer before starting up again?”

 

“I'm good.” Raven pulls a light jacket over her tank top and zips it up halfway. “I don't think we are going to set a new record today, but I feel up for it.”

 

“Okay, but if—”

 

Raven cuts her off, not unfriendly but knowing what she wants to say. “… if I change my mind or feel weak, you will be the first to know.”

 

“Please. I couldn't handle it, if everyone else knew before me.” Abby offers dryly and Raven fights the urge to throw something at her.

 

Abby just grins, obviously sensing the need for revenge and deflects it easily enough. "Over there is a bowl with breakfast ready for you." Abby tells her and points to the knee-high black rocks behind Raven. Mirth lightens up her features as she begins to roll up the blankets from both of their sleeping places. Raven takes the bowl and sits down on one of the large rocks. Without wasting any time she spoons the meal, an assortment of mixed fruit, into her mouth. All the while watching as Abby hustles around and eventually pulls down the tent.

 

"I could get used to this." Raven shoots Abby an appreciative smile, who is kneeling on the grass covered ground, trying to fit the tent back into its silver shining pouch. "You, tending to me all the time."

 

The doctor looks up. "The poison must have gone to your head." Abby responds, fake concern thick in her voice and Raven snickers at Abby's straight face.

 

"Touché, Doc. But seriously, thanks for all this." She gestures around, hoping to encompass all the things Abby had done to make it easier on her while she was out of business and recuperating from her snake bite. "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

 

"Oh, I already have a pretty good idea how you could pay me back." Abby tells her with a mischievous smile, cording up the bag with the tent inside.

 

"Really?" Raven asks, fascinated by the playful expression and despite her intention it sounds low and intimate enough to catch Abby attention. "Is this going to be an immoral proposal? I am intrigued."

 

Abby's gaze fixes on her then and she seems to evaluate and study Raven’s face, the sound of her voice, long enough to make Raven shift on the large black rock she sits on. Raven licks her lips and swallows. It had been supposed to be a light-hearted comment, but somehow it evolves into something else, and she can feel the tension building, this something, between them growing. Maybe it is only a physical attraction, with them being on their own all the time. And Raven can acknowledge- _-has acknowledged in the past_ \--that Abby is a pretty attractive woman, but Raven has no intention to do something about it. She enjoys flustering Abby from time to time that's all there is to it. She has Finn, _well no_... had Finn--or maybe... _whatever._ Quite apart from the fact that Abby herself would not go for it- _-like ever._ Raven isn't the type of person Abby is looking for, not as a partner nor for a one time thing... At that moment, Abby's eyes slide down Raven's neck and back up again and for the fraction of a second Raven wonders if her assessment rings true.

 

Whatever it is between them, judging by her contemplating look, Abby seems to notice it too.

 

"The evening meal." Abby responds after a long moment. She holds Raven's gaze, and they are certainly not talking about food anymore. As the eye-contact continues, her pulse quickens rapidly and Raven is sure she could cut the tension with her knife if she wanted.

 

"Are you done with breakfast?" Abby asks and looks away, clearing her throat.

 

"Yeah." Raven says slowly, standing from the cool stone abruptly. Feeling the need to distance herself from the situation and Abby, because somehow she can't really think clearly when the other woman is looking at her like that... _for whatever reason._

 

A few weeks back Raven had thought about all the time Abby and she would spend together on their journey and that they only had each other for company for a very long while. Back then, she thought she would mind it, would grow tired of only Abby for company eventually, but she finds herself enjoying it more and more each day that passes. It means something, deep down she knows it does, but right now she is not ready to think about it further. "I will just fresh up and be ready in a bit."

 

"Sure." Abby agrees as she ties the folded tent to her backpack.

 

* * *

 

They continue with their journey, traipsing through the jungle for a few hours until the palm trees and vegetation get scarcer and scarcer. They climb up a particular high hill and at the top, Raven stops--riveted to the spot--waiting for Abby to catch up to her.

 

"What is it? Why are you stopping?" Abby calls, slightly out of breath, looking up at Raven as she climbs the steep hill behind her.

 

"You have to see this one for yourself." Raven says and Abby doesn't like the tone in her voice. As she reaches the top, she immediately understands Raven's reluctance.

 

She lets her eyes roam over the landscape before them, but all the way--till the very end of the horizon--is only one thing they see. Large sand dunes shimmer golden under the relentless desert sun. It starts abruptly behind the hill and there is not even a single tree or bush to make out in the distance, only sand as far as the human eye can see. It is startlingly beautiful for an environment that is not sustaining any life.

 

They stand there for a moment, in awe and wonder at this magnificent and ancient land. Taking in the vast wasteland stretching out before them, each of them trapped in thoughts and fears about the journey ahead of them.

 

"We should make camp here." Raven says eventually, pointing back to the green jungle behind them. "Restock and all, before we venture that way."

 

"Do we have to go through there?" Abby questions, eyes still glued to natures beauty before her. She had seen the pictures of deserts, but seeing it like this, with her own eyes, is something arrantly different. It is breathtaking and daunting at once.

 

"I am afraid so." Raven confirms, somehow disheartened, her eyes still glued to the endless expanse outstretched before them. "At least the compass points us in that direction. If we want to head east that is..."

 

Abby reaches for her arm and Raven can't tell if it is for balance or in wordless support, but her skin tingles under the contact either way.

 

"You are right." Abby says ultimately. "We should go back down the hill and gather provisions as much as we can." Her tone takes on a worried note that has Raven tear her eyes away from the desert and to her travel companion. "Who knows how far it stretches on."

 

* * *

 

They return to the edge of the jungle and make camp for the night. It surprises Raven that the trees just become scarce and then vanish over such a short distance entirely, but it is what it is. During the afternoon Abby and she gather as much fruits they can carry and bring them back to their makeshift camp.

 

The evening is spent with peeling ripe fruit, mango's and apples, and cutting the flesh into pieces to dry out. Abby and she might cross to the desert in mere days, but maybe it will take them weeks instead without any opportunity to top up on food or water. And fresh fruit will only last that long before it is starting to rot, not to mention the extra weight, that neither Raven or Abby is able to carry. Raven already has a dreadful feeling that the time has come where she will need to say goodbye to some of her beloved tools. But she pushes that thought to the back of her mind for now. She won't abandon any of those helpful tools before she is about to die a wretched death.

 

"How many of the ration bars do we have left?" Abby asks, threading the pieces of fruit Raven cuts into strips with a knife on a transparent thread. They have already hung a few cords, that stretch from one tree to the other next to their campsite.

 

"Twelve, I think?" Raven says, not entirely sure of the accurate stock. "But I'll have a look."

 

"That would be great." Abby's gaze flickers to her, than back to her task at hand. "Now I am glad the ration bars don't taste half as good as anything we've found here, so there are quite a few left."

 

"The bars are awful, you are free to say so." Raven responds, rummaging through her pack, until she finds the pouch that contains the ration bars, and counts them. "Fourteen even. " She says and looks at Abby. "Okay, we got those bars, then all of that." She gestures at the already hung fruit-stripes." We still need to come up with a plan for our water supply."

 

Abby nods thoughtfully. "I've been thinking about it for a while now, but I am not closer to a solution. The water bottles will just last us for a day, maybe two, when we're rationing. But that doesn't help at all if we're in there for a week--or two."

 

"I agree." Raven responds, cutting another apple. "How long will it take for those fruit to dry?"

 

"It might take a few days, but I guess until we can't solve the water problem, we're not in a hurry."

 

"Guess not." Raven eyes the green, grassy hill she can see in the distance even if she can't see sandy dead zone that lies beyond. "What do you think about going around at the edge? I mean, we could see how far it will go on in the wrong direction, but maybe it's worth a try? We could make a day trip, leave the bags and explore." She tosses a stalk of an apple next to her, where a considerable heap of waste has already accumulated, containing more cores and fruit skin.

 

"I think that's enough for today." Abby says, accepting the stripes Raven hand to her and pulls them onto the thread with the other ones. "It might be worth a try. If we leave the bags we would be much faster and able to cover more ground. We just need to make sure that we find our way back here." She chuckles and Raven feels compelled to smile at her. "We can make sure of that." Raven offers.

 

Abby stands from the ground, shaking out her legs after such a long while of inactivity. She still holds the thread with the strung yellow fruit up, so they won't touch to the ground. "Can you pin this end to that palm tree?" She asks, holding out one end and a nail for Raven to take.

 

"Sure thing." Raven takes the transparent string from Abby's hand and loops it, makes a knot and pushes the nail into the bark of the tree, until she is sure it won't slip out again and hangs the threat into it. As she turns to Abby, the doctor has just finished up her end.

 

"What do you say if we go out tomorrow to gather more fruits, string them up too, and then go on our reconnaissance trip the day after tomorrow? The stripes have time to dry out and we won't lose another day."

 

"Sounds good to me, Doc." Raven replies and turns to Abby. "I'll go and look for some firewood now for tonight. The sun is going down already and I really don't want to sit in the dark later."

 

"Take the knife though." Abby tells her and rinses it with water from her bottle, washing off the sticky fruit juice carefully then hands it over to Raven. "You never know. Maybe today is the day where you actually catch something." She says with a challenging grin.

 

"It's not like you have better scores..." Raven sing-songs, but takes the knife from Abby anyway. They have seen small animals, rabbits or squirrels, but the emphasis is placed on seen. Neither of them have been able to catch one yet. Raven has taken it upon herself to improve her knife throwing skills in the evenings, with a target painted on a tree. Abby would join her sometimes, and with the continued practice they've gotten better. But until now, to Raven's growing chagrin, just not good enough. And for all it is worth, it's a rather interesting way to pass the time in the evenings after their daily trips through the thick jungle.

 

Only now, down on Earth, Raven comes to realize how long some days can be. Back on the Ark it was easy. There was always something to do for her, someone to meet or talk to, but here on Earth they only have each other. She doesn't mind Abby's company, but she misses working as a mechanic, misses to to be needed. The radio is still broken and they haven't come across anything, what Raven could have used as replacement material to fix it. There's a lot to do on a daily basis, like gathering food, looking for water, washing their clothes, cooking or setting up the tent, but still, she misses her true calling. But then Raven figures, Abby must miss hers too, so she doesn't complain.

 

Half an hour later, a small campfire fizzes, the wood burning in a orange glow as night is falling. Raven watches the smoke rise up into the sunset sky until the fire is hot enough to start with the evening dinner. Good on her word she prepares the evening meal, while Abby sets up the tent for the night a few feet away. Even though it has become customary that Abby cooks the meals, because somehow it tastes a little better when the doctor does it. Raven can't figure out why that is, she has watched her preparing it often enough, but it still remains a mystery to her. But when she thinks back to the meals they started out with, she and Abby both have significantly improved their cooking skills. As it turned out, neither a doctor nor a mechanic were born cooks.

 

* * *

 

The next few days are spent gathering more food supplies and taking the trip along the edge of the desert, but after seven hours walking it becomes clear, that this particular path isn't a viable option for them. The desert stretches on much farther than both of them could have imagined. With the sun beating down on them more fiercely than ever before, Abby and she decide to return to the camp and try their luck with the way the compass points them to. Only late at night they arrive back at the camp, finding their tent easily thanks to the signs Raven had laid out with branches in the sand the day before.

 

Even though the trip had been nothing but a waste of time, Raven figures out a plan on how to transport more water with them during their trip through the desert.

 

The tent has an emergency patch kit, which provides them with thirty square foot of excess material that is impermeable to water and perfect to make two fluid bags out of it. They spent another day to build the bags, cutting and gluing the sides together with a special glue that luckily came with the emergency kit. Raven walks to a small stream nearby and fills the bags with water, testing if they aren't leaking any of the life sustaining fluid. To her great joy, their conception holds as she fills them, as well as during the night.

 

"Ready to move on?" Abby asks her in the morning and Raven can only nod.

 

The desert awaits.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I took some time with this, but I mapped out the story and it will contain of 5 more chapters. I've written 4 of them already, so those need just a little more tweaking. I hope you still enjoy, even with time I took between chapters to figure it out... I don't really know if anyone is even still reading this...


	7. Chapter 7

  
  
Four weeks into their journey, they are conserving as much as they can. There is dried fruit and a few ration bars left from their carefully collected supply but it is not quite enough anymore. Raven can feel herself getting weaker every day. But she sees the inadequate nutrition at Abby's body even more than at herself then Abby didn't bring much body weight along to begin with. But they are surviving, that is all that matters.  
  
Most times they walk during the late afternoons and at first light in the mornings. At all times the sun is not at its highest peak in the sky. It is the only time they can actually walk without dying of heatstroke or sweating the precious water from their supply right out. While she puts one foot in front of the other, Raven's mind wanders without her permission, having nothing else to do as to follow Abby's footprints she leaves in the sand.  
  
Her thoughts take her back to the Ark and how she didn't really mind living on a space station. Life certainly wasn’t easy or comfortable, but what Raven has seen from Earth so far is not much better. Raven had always fought for the things that were important to her. She accomplished everything so she would become a mechanic, studied hard enough to be the best in her class, and worked her ass off to get into Zero-G. Although Sinclair had made the last part happen, by overruling the medical decision in the end. Raven had not thought it imaginable at the time; she had--although grudgingly--accepted to be cast out of the program because of her stupid heart murmur. Something like this was practically unheard of. Sinclair must have pulled a lot of strings to make that happen. Raven actually misses Sinclair a lot when she is honest to herself—and right now--out here--she has nothing but time to be honest to herself.  
  
She also thinks back to her time with Finn and how her heart does not clench painfully anymore at the thought of him. How she still has some kind of soft spot for him but wants him to be happy. Even if that is without her. Raven realizes they can go back to what they had before, before love came into the picture--before everything was complicated by feelings.  
  
Raven has come to terms with that—at least now, after many weeks to get over it. Thinking back to the beginning when they had only just started this journey and how angry she had been. How frustrating it had been to lose something so precious to her. But over time she had realized that the significant connection she and Finn shared could never be destroyed. Not even through death or distance because they had a profound and lasting connection. Even if they are not a couple anymore—they would never lose that. Even if Finn moved on by the time she and Abby will reach the camp, Raven doesn't believe she will want Finn back as a lover.  
  
Abby stumbles in front of her and Raven reaches out to grasp her elbow to stabilize the other woman. Her hand can clasp around Abby's upper arm entirely now and the tips of her fingers touch to her thumb. Her heart throbs painfully at the realization that they are slowly but surely running out of time. Abby looks up at her briefly and smiles in thanks. Every time Raven looks at her; she is shocked anew how she sees every muscle in total definition now. The bones on her back each time Abby stretches or the ones on her ribs she can see, even without any movement at all. Raven reaches into her backpack and fumbles around for her water bottle without missing a step and hands it to Abby without a word. Deep in her stomach dread settles how Abby's condition has deteriorated so profoundly alone over the past couple of days.  
  
"I already drank something." Abby notes distractedly and waves off the offered bottle.  
  
"Well, I have some to spare."  
  
Raven does not have any liquid to spare and they both know it only too well. But she is glad when Abby takes a small, careful sip from her bottle anyway. Most likely too tired to argue with Raven over it. And that makes the feeling in Raven's stomach even worse. The Abby she knows, is meticulous about her water intake. Not more than she should, but not too little either--at least the minimum for survival, like four ounces of water a day, but certainly not from Raven’s supply. The Abby she knows would be very cautious about their reserves; would check the provisions on her own. Would notice that Raven is slipping her rations. Would notice that Raven’s food intake swindles each day a tad more.  
  
Raven reasons she can handle it to a greater degree, being more youthful and vital. Even though Abby is in a solid physical shape, she is a little too thin to handle something like starving slowly in the desert for weeks with scarcely any food left.  
  
At high noon, when the scorching sun is burning from the sky, Raven rearranges the clothes that cover her head and shoulders to protect her skin from an additional sunburn. Even with her darker complexion, the sun is relentless, fierce and scorching. Her back, her entire skin feels like its on fire all the time, despite her efforts to cover all of her skin with some kind of fabric. When she changes her shirt, and she has run out on clean ones a while ago, small patches of skin sticks to the shirt and peels off when she tugs just a little harder. The first time it happened, she nearly puked on her shoes. At rock-bottom it's something an empty stomach is good for. She indicates for Abby to make camp now; wait out the hottest time of the day in the shade. Converting the tarp of their shelter in an awning is easy enough with their materials from the tent.  
  
Raven read someplace that sunburns can cause skin cancer. By now, her whole body consists of nothing but burnt flesh, that gets burned again the following day. And the next. And the next. If she doesn't have cancer from radiation poisoning, she will definitely get it from this. If they would die from the radiation, Raven kind of hopes it happens here and very, very soon. But she knows that is not gonna happen. It is a lengthy, painful death that nothing but a broken neck or deadly venom can speed up. For the fraction of a second Raven's thoughts wander off, wondering what kind of medication Abby might still have in her pack. If there is even something to relieve them of their misery..  
  
But she doesn't dare to ask Abby, Raven just can't. Not yet. So she keeps quiet and ponders some more if she could actually do what might become necessary in the worst-case scenario. The thought alone, that she wonders about it, tells Raven more about her frame of mind than she is willing to admit right now. She will think about it once more tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or never--when they get out of this desert before she truly requires to.  
  
She trips over an isolated big rock that is half covered by sand but saves herself at the last moment and regains her balance--to not fall face first into the dirt. Raven is aware that she can't raise her arms that fast anymore, not that they could carry her weight plus the weight of her backpack any longer to brace the fall either. She chuckles mirthlessly and feels suffocated by the dryness in her mouth, leaving only a scratchy feeling in her throat.  
  
Raven thinks about her mother. How she died and how Raven was unable to help her. How she misses her still, how she wishes she could've done something to help her. Because she remembers her mom when she was like three or four years old--when she still had her shit together--when she had been lovely and caring. Right before every single thing went south.  
  
At nightfall they set up the tent and fall inside next to each other exhausted. A dust storm rattles against the hull of the tent and Raven hands a portion of dried fruit over to Abby.  
  
"Where does that come from?" She inquires, and Raven looks down into her backpack as she responds, so she doesn't have to look into Abby's eyes.  
  
"It slipped out of the wrap for todays ration." She also rummages for her water, holding it out for the doctor to take. She only looks up when Abby ignores it deliberately, not uttering a word. "It's yours. Now eat it or I will." Raven forces out a chuckle--and the lie burns hot on her cheeks. It is almost completely dark now, and she hopes that the doctor won't be able to see it anymore.  
  
"Are you sure?" Abby asks and her tone suggest she doesn't quite believe it. "Maybe it's from tomorrows?!"  
  
"Nope, I checked." Raven announces, as casually as she can muster and bites the inside of her cheek as Abby ultimately takes the first bite with a shrug--not trusting herself to suppress the sigh of relief otherwise.  
  
Raven extends the bottle of water one more time, but Abby says, "No, that's yours."  
  
Raven groans. "Don't be a Mom and drink the fucking water."  
  
A moment of silence, but then. "If I were your mom I would put you across my knee for that kind of language." Abby informs her, but Raven can tell by her tone that she is kidding and Abby accepts the bottle from her hand nonetheless and drinks a healthy swig from it before passing it back to Raven.  
  
"Oh yeah?" Would you spank me too?" Raven rasps, full of suggestion and Abby chokes on a piece of fruit.  
  
Raven pats her back.  
  
"Unbelievable." Abby croaks and the rough quality of her voice sends an unwilling chill down Raven's spine to the tip of her toes.  
  
"You started it." Raven responds and forces a grin, ignoring the way how it pulls and churns deep in the pit of her stomach. A feeling that absolutely has nothing to do with the lack of food.  
  
One corner of Abby's lips twitches. "Perhaps."  
  
As Raven's fingers brush her wrist, Abby looks over sharply. Raven doesn’t touch her unless she has a specific reason to and Abby must grasp it. The tantalizing warmth migrating from Abby's skin into the tips of her fingers is gone the moment Raven pulls back and severs the connection. Raven doesn't need to look at Abby to know she has an eyebrow risen in question. She can't really tell why she did it either, so explaining is out of the question.  
  
For a moment she merely gazes at the stars at the firmament, through the zipped doors that are still open and flattering back and forth in the nightly breeze. Somewhere up there, Raven thinks, in between star clusters, diffuse nebulae, supernova remnants and galaxies of all types still floats the Ark in Earths planetary orbit, looking down on them even when those sensors can't make them out.    
  
"We should try catching some sleep. It's late." Raven says eventually, throat dry.   
  
"Raven." Abby says, and it sounds low and heavy and far too much like something Raven can't handle right now. She doesn't have the nerve to look up at her and fiddles with the straps of a backpack.  
  
"Come on." She insists and nudges Abby's bag over to the other woman and rolls out her own sleeping mat on the left side of their tent.  
  
For a long moment she can practically feel Abby is about to say something else, and she holds her breath for a painful minute, until Abby concedes in the end and just rolls out her bedroll beside hers.  
  
Raven releases a faint, shivering breath into the heavy silence.  
  


* * *

  
One night it rains and she and Abby are able to stock up the water supply, by catching the rain with the tarp of the tent. With the excess water they wash their clothes for the first time in weeks, and Raven feels like a human again. The smile she witnesses on Abby's face lightens and warms her heavy heart for a while and she doesn't think about the upcoming days--or weeks. They spend the hours of darkness filling up their water bags until they spill over and then drink as much water as they can until both of their stomachs are stretched and swollen. It doesn't quench the hunger, but at least it is something.  
  


* * *

  
The days and nights go by, and Raven believes they've been to this godforsaken place forever. She misses the thick jungle and the blue ocean. The sound of waves breaking against the shore and tries to distract herself from the nagging feeling in her abdomen. Sometimes the need for food is so intense that she can't stand it, and she considers all the things she would eat now--anything really--things she never thought she would even consider eating, it's so unbearable. But then she looks at Abby and Abby looks even more disastrous than Raven--and she bears it, without complaint, just the agonizing rumble in her stomach.  
  
Abby looks worse every day, and Raven realizes she can't stand by and watch her suffer any longer. She slips Abby more food--piece by piece every day. To begin with it is just a piece here and there, but with each day that passes the heartache just looking at her grows. At some point it becomes almost her entire share and Raven just tries not to get caught doing it. She concludes it is not that destructive and she can go on a few days longer without. They are likely to die after three days without water, but can go without food for up to eight weeks. Abby briefed her about this in the beginning of their desert trip. But they won't have to do it for that long.  
  
She can't think about the possibility that they might. They won't.  
  
They are going to reach better, greener pastures, at long last. And when that hour comes Raven will just have lost a few pounds. It must be ten as of now, she thinks, maybe more. At least judging by the belt, she needs to use to hold her pants up. But still, nobody can argue with that kind of logic... And if Abby chastises her at that point in time, telling her she would have made it even without those extra rations, Raven will take the lecture from her with pleasure. At least she is still healthy and alive to give it.  
  
It is dangerous now and Raven knows it. It disturbs her that Abby doesn't recognize it. It seems to Raven as if the doctor has lost a fragment of herself out here. Somewhere in the vastness of this desert, amidst rocks and stones. In between the towering dunes of sand that stretch on as far as the eye can see--shimmering as glorious as the sun itself--a crucial part of her has gone missing.  
  
She really can't lose Abby. _Not now, not here--not ever._ But Raven also knows Abby is never going to last those eight weeks.  
  


* * *

  
Two weeks later the trail before them just seems as infinite as it has in the very beginning and still there is no hope or green meadow or trees or anything in sight yet. The horizon is barren for anything but sand and more sand.  
  
They are not very great on water and out of food for six whole days now.  
  
Raven has come to a point where she thinks they might die out here, that this is the end. The final stop. The nights are as cold as the days are insufferable hot and they lay sprawled out in the tent that has come down from the Ark with them. They rest together in the darkness, without a fire because neither one of them still has the energy to make one. Dry logs lie splattered around every now and then, but Raven is in no state to gather it--not any longer at least.  
  
Getting up the tent on its own is torture enough, even though it is just four poles that go into the dry sand. Every single movement causes a bolt of faintness. Her muscles ache and scream at every motion and it has become an almost unmanageable task. But Raven does it regardless with gritted teeth, even though she requires four times longer now than she typically did, but at least Abby is able to catch a breath.  
  
"You remember the pudding with apple and cinnamon on top?" Raven asks in the dead of one night, when sleeps eludes them once more, like so very often.  
  
Abby's stomach growls in response, loud and forceful, and they both let out a chuckle into the tranquil night. The sound rumbles on for a few more moments and Raven becomes aware of the fact that her own stomach hasn't given a sole murmur for a few days now. For all she knows that's a good sign, but deep down she knows--it truly isn't.  
  
"I guess that answers that." Abby's tone is one of longing but also humorous to some degree, something Raven hasn't heard for a while now. She reaches out and searches the ground until she finds Abby's hand in the darkness and simply clings to it. Abby's fingers curl against her own and if Raven wasn't so tired, she would think about what it all means.  
  
"Or the pancakes?" Raven asks instead. "Gosh, did I love those pancakes."  
  
"Stop talking about food, please." Abby beseeches her and it sounds like she is in an endlessly long lasting state of agony. And Raven suspects she most likely is.  
  
For Abby, she attempts to let it go, but her mind returns to the rich dish unbidden, the sweetness of the syrup on her tongue or its texture after taking a bite. For a moment she imagines she can even smell it.  
  
"I can't--it is the only thing keeping me sane... Which were your favorites?"  
  
For a long while Abby keeps silent and Raven thinks she might not answer or has already fallen asleep, but then starts telling her about all the things they don't have anymore. They talk until late into the night, then despite the exhaustion, sleep is hard to come by these days. It is nature's cruelest punishment to keep them awake by a aching body who is rebelling forcefully against their fate. When the unconsciousness claims them at the last, the next morning comes sooner than none of them is truly ready for.   
  
Raven wakes more tired than the day before and wonders if she got any rest at all. She turns on her side and watches Abby for a while, fidgeting and haunted even in her dreams. Without thinking about it, her fingers play over the skin of Abby's bare wrist and her arm, and to some extent the older woman must sense the contact even in her sleep and a smile hushes over Raven's face as she calms down.    
  


* * *

  
When Abby gets sick a few days later, Raven is scared shitless and has a nagging feeling she might die. Abby is not supposed to get sick. She is the doctor, and Raven to her growing horror has no clue what to do. As a Zero-G mechanic she had learned about first aid, when something goes wrong in space, but there isn't much to do, when your body swells up, burns from inside, mutates your DNA until you pass out or your lungs explode in the void of space. Raven can deal with cuts or burns or heck, maybe even with a broken bone. But not with that shivering, thin all the way to her bones woman beside her. And Abby can't tell her a thing anymore since the fever has broken out and she has gone into some kind of feverish delirium. For a while she shivers so violently that Raven doesn't dare to let her out of her sight.  
  
"Clarke?" Abby whispers, but her eyelids are closed, her eyes moving rapidly beneath the thin layer of skin.   
  
"Shhhh." Raven murmurs, fighting down the feeling of helplessness and fear that has taken a hold of her. Sacrificing a bit of their water supply to soak a piece of cloth, she presses the fabric to Abby's forehead trying to get the temperature down.  
  
During the night she doesn't sleep and sits close by, watching on as they are now in reversed positions and replaces the damp cloth from time to time with a new one.  
  
The small pouch of Abby's medical supplies lies before her, the contents scattered about as Raven tries to find something to get the fever down, but in the sparsely moonlight it takes longer than she likes to find anything. Even though the pills bear labels for their use with Abby's flowing handwriting on them and Raven is not for the first time grateful for her sense of neatness. She forces the pills down Abby's throat in one of her more lucid moments and lets her drink a days ration of water that is by now not more than a cup.  
  
As she packs the pills and vials back into the pouch, she surprises herself looking for something else. If Abby dies of the fever, she can still make her way back to the others. Tell them what happened. Tell Clarke that her mother tried everything to get back to her, to just see her again.  
  
But in a dark corner of her mind, Raven knows she won't leave here without Abby. She tells her as much in a whisper, clasping her hand and listens to the rasping sound of Abby's labored breathing.  
  
They make it together or don't make it at all. _There's no other way out._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I give up... There is absolutely no way I'm able to tell how many chapters this is going to have. I finish one and realize I've write two more for it to make sense.. haha.. yeah.


End file.
